


drown

by unhappyrefrain



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Trost arc-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unhappyrefrain/pseuds/unhappyrefrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they all have scars. eren/armin, platonic mikasa/eren</p>
            </blockquote>





	drown

Armin whispers, a voice that could have been gone just moments before, he whispers as he kneels next to you with your hands chained and every muscle in your body aching like it's been whipped raw. His voice is soothing like water over a wound and you've loved it since you can remember and he talks as your hands shake inside the cuffs, fists clenching and unclenching. You listen, your head bowed.

"I thought I had lost you," he says, and he hasn't touched your face, he hasn't tilted your chin up, he can't look at you entirely. You understand-- he's scared, and you would be, too. But at least you're not dead, he seems to be saying, with the way his fingers brush against your knees as he sits in front of you, at least you're here and you're chained to a wall but you're alive. "I _swear_ I saw you die, right there, I kept thinking there's no _way_ you would live, you've had a knack for getting out alive in the most desperate situations but that wasn't… that _wasn't_ …"

He chokes on a breath and from the corner of your eye you can see he's still halfway looking at your arm. Gone, and now back.  
"That didn't seem _possible_ , and I just lost it, Eren, I thought for sure you were gone…"  
You can't say anything. You look down, clenching your teeth. He's weeping and you don't want to hurt him any more than you already have. He's in so much pain right now and he's mourning for the people he lost, not just you, because you're not the only thing that matters now-- God _damn_ it, when did you _ever_ , they whisper behind closed doors that you're not so easily dispensable because of this incident and what they could learn from it, but you know in the basest parts of you that you are really just another human, and you can be extinguished, you can be snuffed out just like everyone else. Marco died there, half of his body gone, he did not die a hero so why should you?

You keep thinking that it would have been easier for Armin if you had just stayed dead. He wouldn't have to hold on any more than he is now. Each close shave with death has been another step into the grave as far as you are concerned and every time you feel its cold breath on the back of your neck you know there will be a moment, there will come one time, where you will die.  
 _You_. You will die.  
You can't escape it forever and now the gap between your ribs feels like a black hole, infinitely heavy and pulling everything with it. It would have been much easier if you didn't delay death so many times. If you keep this up you might actually convince Armin that you won't die and that's a lie, that's as easy a lie as anything. And then he would break even more because humans are built on expectations and hope, and torn down by disappointments and unpredictabilities. He would break, and break, and break until he is unrecognizable to anyone else.  
He touches your face with the back of his hand, (-- _strange, you thought he was too scared, but maybe he's just laying the groundwork for a day to come in which you would never wake up_ \--) and you stop flinching. He opens his eyes and looks at you, his lips parting quietly as if wanting to say something, but then stops as he hears footsteps.  
In a dream he would have kissed you, but this is not a dream, this is ugly, gutted, searing reality and you cannot wake up. He does not kiss you. He walks away.

* * *

Mikasa falls.

And usually when Mikasa falls it's a terribly graceful thing, like she means to, like she was ready. But when her gas supply gives out in midflight, she's not ready, and it shows as she winces, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. She bites her lip as she stands up, elbows and knees and shins all scraped from the cobblestones. And she backs down, and her whole body tenses and mouth closes and she grasps the end of the scarf as the footsteps come hard and echoing from her right.  
She drops to her knees and from here it looks like she has finally given up.

(Giving up isn't the right way to say it, not so much as turning towards death.)

You aren't exactly Eren but you're not really anything else at the moment you approach, your tendons aching, something in your brain buzzing wildly as you do, and through the blurry eyes you see her setting two hands on the remainder of her blade, and that's when you feel the terrific blaze ripping through your body like cannon fire and you reach out with ( _your arm? is that what it is? you lost an arm once, but you can't remember if that was real_ \--) your _arm_ , and there's blood. Titan blood. Blood in your eyes that are more like telescopes, or framed lenses. And she stands up. She stands up.

She's always standing up.  
Even when the heel of Corporal Levi's boot drives into the front of your skull and you are bowed over, both hands chained like before, and you can't really see through the warm blood coming down your forehead, she strains over Armin in an effort to free you, her knuckles white against the banister. She's still standing but for some reason you keep thinking that she's the most hurt of all of you. So many things her loved ones have suffered, and being stronger than both you and Armin (and most of humanity) is a burden. You see it in her eyes when Levi's knee hits your chin, that she is too strong and it comes with a price quite like immortality-- someday she will have to watch you and everyone else she loves fall away.

* * *

And you? You are not quite human, not quite Titan, cursed with a searing rage that won't quit, that is in you and all around you. You are Eren Jaeger without any particular talent or power, just passion and fury and stubbornness. That's all it is. You are childish and obstinate and one of these days you will die. The only thing that makes you even close to strong is your inability to see when you're doomed. You don't see it, but Armin sees it, Mikasa sees it, everyone understands but you.


End file.
